ALL SHOULD BE FAIR iN USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO HOLD INTENTIONAL TENANT FRAUDSTERS TO TASK

There are good tenants. There are bad.

As with everything in life, there are those intending to respect the system harmed by those who game the system. In the world of the internet where more is public than we expected to happen, it is time for landlords to understand the power of social media in tenant leases.

A trusting person put hard money to work doing the "American Dream" their way, investing in to an income property after spending time looking at neighborhoods to consider, invested time in to cleaning the place up, put it on the market. And then horrors began to hit.

You see the hydra of tenant vetting included referrals, background checks and credit checks. Check. Check. Check. Reality bites.The professional businessman turned out to have anger issues against the system which, to the angry man included landlords.The nice middle age lady with multiple jobs slowly snuck in multiple pets which brought in multiple pests.

The snag & release are the couple that paid first and last and that is all they ever paid. A quick scan of landlords sharing names of deadbeat tenants to avoid is but a drop of water in the ocean of jurisdictions that tend to pro-bono the heck of out lawyers seeking accolades bearing at taking on the Man & the System.

But what happens when the system fails, the man, the little landlord worn from "Snag & Releases" it takes 4+ months and a coupla grand to evict. They bring along cats, dogs, lovers, haters, and others not mentioned in the lease they signed. One can ask all the right questions on the application form, without asking the most important questions like 'have you been evicted before' and 'what were the circumstances' and why, what did your landlord offer that you rejected accordance on.

Let's be clear there are bad landlords, too, the focus is what is a nice guy or gal supposed to do, aside from going on to Spokeo.com and/or hiring a PI but even then, there are landlords who figure the 'bad rubbish' is gone so Keep On Landlording On.

Here is a reality- Social Media is creeping in to landlord/tenant leases. Equity Residential's leases include text forbidding tenants subleasing units via Airbnb, Expedia and other such sites, too.

Here is a reality counter-check to consider, why cant landlords go there too after collecting the Judgment in the court, having paper in hand, weighing the best way to get that outstanding rent?

In a world of Baitclick a cottage industry putting online cons mug shots harvested from felons records, citing the pics are "public domain", there, ergo too, a court document, unless sealed is publicly accessible, hence fair game to post online. No no no not fat shaming someone in to losing weight, taking that piece of paper the landlord "bought" with high power necessitated Lawyer representation and making that paper work (i) with ads, (ii) with even gathering other landlord's eviction document collection, soliciting judgment collectors ie. via Thumbtack type sites intended for landlord judgment collection and with (iii) making this information available for other landlords spending more time than they have to get a pound of judgment flesh, maybe.

Of course some bleeding heart lawyer will claim invasion of privacy, well, here's this, if the tenant applied via internet, the landlords comeback is online fraud to the tenant who has to date been able to hide their history of scam.The landlord would be wise to request the judge order the Eviction & money judgement to be posted online. The judge would be wiser to give the errant scam tenant a window of time within which to pay up or risk being shut out, again, this time from a prospective landlord benefiting from a harmed peer landlord's experience.

The wise landlord lease would have a clause, conforming with laws, that could state the tenant takes occupancy knowing all documents from an eviction and collection process would be posted online and that any steps taken against the landlord would be considered retaliatory coming with the added potential punch of Defamation and/or libel if the Tenant took their tall tale to the streets.

Will it work, dunno? But a good judge could consider researching the viability of taking to task the lawyer who takes on the tenant who will cry "foul" against the landlord trying to go two steps forward instead of two financial steps back every time the landlord takes on, unknowingly, that impossible to see what is in that scammers head or heart.Think Social, landlords. Keywords may be viable. Ads may be profitable, useful to getting some of the stolen monies back. Yes, staying in a unit without intending to pay rent is stealing the small landlord's ability to pay his or her bills. Use the Judges orders to your advantage to protect your hard earned assets and monies, but only after vetting your lawyers opinion on what is a new frontier in this newer emerging online wild west.

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